In the words of Dave Chappelle, Kelly Slater needs a backiotomy. Photo: Instagram
Kelly Slater has been surfing for quite a while now. He’s still spry, but time waits for no man and Kelly is just a man, despite his 11 world titles and G.O.A.T. status. One of the reasons he’s still so spry, though, is because he has taken good care of his body over the years. His back issues have never been a secret, and he recently revealed that he had some progressive medical examinations done to see what’s happening under his skin suit.
“I had a recent body scan done at @prenuvo to get a rundown of all the potential health concerns I know about and want to check in on or am unaware of and need to address now that I’m off tour and have some downtime,” he wrote on Instagram. As you can read, I had a few minor and moderate findings to address which I won’t go over here. Clearly my scoliosis, which I’ve spoken about many times, is a serious issue but there were a few things I was unaware of that I reviewed with their doctor to either deal with or keep in mind as I continue future scans and see any noticeable changes.”
That back problem has been with him for a long time, so he’s gotten pretty used to managing it by now. “I am carrying a pretty serious back problem,” he said all the way back in 2016. “I have been for a number of years now. I don’t know if I’ve been in denial of it or pretending it’s not as bad as it is or whatever, but I have quite a lot of days where I don’t actually surf because my back hurts. It’s the lower back. I get scoliosis pretty badly in my back, and I’ve got a real imbalance where I’m short on one side and long on the other. Then up the middle back it sort of goes the opposite – I’ve got this s-curve in my back.”
The s-curve he was talking about nearly a decade ago is clearly visible in the Prenuvo scan you see here. Although he’s spoken in depth about it before, it felt strange to him to show it to the world in black and white. It is, however, important to acknowledge the fact that we all age, and Kelly’s willingness to do so will, somewhat ironically, likely slow down the process a bit.
“Showing my spine feels super personal as it’s crazy to see the curvature I’ve dealt with all these years but I think it’s important people know we all deal with physical ailments and can find ways to minimize their impacts and potentially reverse what comes up,” he continued. “These scans are especially important for people in their 50s and beyond and I’m super thankful Prenuvo were able to find me a time in the short window I had to make it into their clinic.”
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